Ok, so my first after Christmas post was going to be mostly a compilation of pictures and a big ole whine about how my kids have too much stuff. But then I was watching Oprah (very productive in my time off) and I had to write about this story. This lady volunteered at a shelter for foster kids and learned that they don't have pajamas. The lady, like me, grew up with the routine of putting on pjs and going to bed. She brought in pjs for the 12 kids at the shelter, and one little girl looked at them, and said "What are those?" She was 6 years old and had never had pajamas. Call me premenstrual but the tears started flowing. Here I am griping because my family thinks my kids need to have 3499686 outfits and 234 pairs of pjs, and there are kids with none out there.
My cousin was telling me a story that also hit home. She's a teacher at the same elementary school where I went. She told me about a family who lives in a plywood house that's about 300 square feet. The kids have to walk through a creek with no bridge to get to the school bus. One kid is in the 4th grade and is up to recognizing about 1/2 the letters of the alphabet. My kids already know at least 80% of their letters and they're 2 1/2. The kids had very few clothes and no supplies, so the teachers got together and got them stuff.
With these stories, I'm committing to a New Year's resolution that actually matters. Well, I'm not pretending I'm Mother Teresa- I still have the selfish ones- lose weight, get in shape, all that. But I'm going to start doing more for charity. I talked to her about doing a backpack drive for local schools next summer, and she can get us a local family to adopt for Christmas. I have boxed up 4 boxes so far of kids toys and clothes for the local womens and childrens' shelter.
So now I challenge all you bloggers out there to do what you can. We can all do more. Frankly, just the thought of kids out there with no pajamas or sleeping on the floor and walking through creeks to get to school crushes me and I'm sure it does you too.
Tonight or tomorrow I'll be back to my regularly scheduled inane ramblings but for now I'm thanking God for all my blessings.
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4 comments:
I watched that Oprah too and thought we might get some PJ's together for our next DZ Alum meeting and send them too her. It seems like we are on the same wave length because my New Year's resolution to to be more grateful. It is a hard one for me, but my resolution is to try every day to remind myself of what I have and how much I am blessed.
I shudder at the thought of children not knowing what PJ's are! I, too, was recently lamenting about the obscene amount of Christmas gifts our household received. I did not see this Oprah so I appreciate the reminder that I need to be grafeful what what I am able to provide to my family and also that I need to give more to others who are not as fortunate.
I have even saved some presents the kids got (unopened STILL) to hopefully drive down the the local shelter. With two Dora bookbags I found on sale. You are right, we are SO fortunate. Other kids don't have anything, and I'd hate for that to be MY kid.
Gostei muito desse post e seu blog é muito interessante, vou passar por aqui sempre =) Depois dá uma passada lá no meu site, que é sobre o CresceNet, espero que goste. O endereço dele é http://www.provedorcrescenet.com . Um abraço.
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